Kavon Frazier – August 26, 2020
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Wednesday, August 26, 2020
S Kavon Frazier
(Obviously you signed during a time where workouts weren’t allowed. Did you talk to General Manager Chris Grier, Head Coach Brian Flores or Defensive Backs Coach Gerald Alexander before you signed, before David Canter did a deal for you, and if so, what did they tell you?) – “No, I didn’t speak to anybody before that came. Yeah, there was a time we couldn’t do any workouts obviously. Last year I was hurt, coming off of a pec injury. It was just an unfortunate time for me, because I needed to be seen by teams in order to have them trust that I was 100 percent healthy. Even though that was Week 4 of the season last year, teams wanted to see to see how I was feeling, to see if I was 100 percent. I was just fortunate to have them actually believe that what we were saying, and believe my agent, that I was 100 percent; and ultimately believe in me, and believe in my talent and what I could do on the field.”
(I wanted to ask you because you’re pretty much a strong safety. What’s the biggest key to mastering those run fits when you have to help out in the run?) – “Yeah, run fits to me is one of my strong suits. It just kind of comes natural to me. In Dallas, I don’t want to speak too much about this – about my time in Dallas – but during my time in Dallas, I was doing the same thing. I was down in the box a lot, filling in holes, filling in gaps, so this defense is just coming natural to me.”
(You played a lot of special teams in Dallas and now you’re here to compete with work in the defensive backfield. How important is it to you to earn reps on defense, and what’s your impression so far on the defensive back room through the first couple of weeks during training camp?) – “It’s definitely important. Like I said, I really don’t want to go too much at my time in Dallas because I’m at a new chapter now and I’m just grateful to be here, but I didn’t really get the opportunity that I wanted there. So here, it’s definitely important for me to try to get on the field on defense; but with that being said, I’m willing to do whatever they want me to do. I realize I’m in my fifth year and we have a lot of other people also, so there’s a lot of competition going on. Shoot, I’m just doing whatever they want me to do. If they want me to play strictly punt and just coverage units, I’m cool with that. If they need me in on defense, I’m going to be ready for my opportunity when it comes.”
(I know you’ve been kind of active in the protest movement throughout the offseason. I just wanted to get your view on where we currently are and what you feel your role is in bringing attention to social justice?) – “Yeah, this is a tough topic for me because I had an incident when I was younger and I was racially profiled when I was 10 years old. The police thought I had a gun on me, but I was just a 10-year-old innocent kid who went to Christian school all my life, who was doing all the right things. At that moment there, I knew anybody could be targeted just by the color of their skin. That’s why I’m so active in the community. I’m so active in trying to educate other people about what’s going on, about how America really is for us. But where we are right now, I’m really lost. I’m lost for words, I’m lost for hope. I really don’t understand how after people watch what happened to George Floyd and after they watch that eight or nine minute clip, how this last incident could’ve happened. I just don’t understand how somebody could – somebody who is unarmed, family in the car, how he could be a threat. I just don’t understand. We’re lost. We’re scared. I’m scared. I drive a pretty nice car and I’m scared if I get pulled over, that could happen to me. I have two daughters at home. Obviously this happens a lot with males, but my daughters still look like me. They still have some darkness to their skin. I’m just scared. Me as a male in America right now, I’m really, really scared. I just don’t understand. I don’t know. Because that could be me with my daughter in the car and they just unload seven shots on me. I’m just lost man. I’m lost.”
(In Dallas, you guys didn’t necessarily have the freedom to kneel or protest. Have you given some thought as to what you’ll be doing here?) – “I don’t really want to speak on my time in Dallas. This is a new chapter. As far as the protest, we’re just going to take that as it comes, and just talk with the team about it. As it comes up, then we’re going to attack it. Right now, there are other problems going on in this world. Obviously the NBA has been taking knees, they’ve been wearing Black Lives Matter shirts and the same stuff is still going on. Obviously people don’t get the message. There are people out there that still don’t understand what us as black males in America really go through. We’ve been telling them this for a long time now and they just think we’re lying. They victimize us and they think that we are the problem. Just because some of us may act a certain way or came up from certain neighborhood, that we’re always – that everybody is angry or everybody is upset at the world. Really, it’s the other way around. We’re lost for hope right now. We’re scared.”
